Violets

A broken girl of merely seventeen – a wishbone, crushed between the teeth of a monster. She watches and waits, sees the world pass her by, but does not let it bother her. A wallflower, a bystander in her own body; she sees the best in everyone but herself. She looks like poetry and talks like a summer breeze caught in the branches of a tree. She is not a story, but a song, short and created to ease the pain around her. And so, she does, but cannot find it in herself to soften her own jagged edges. She bleeds as if always stuck with a knife edge and she dreams of better things like they are fairy dust and magic; unreachable, non-existent.

When I meet her, I’m in love, instantly smitten, but I also think everyone else in the room is too. She hides in the corner of the room, her eyes shut tight, begging to be taken from the blaring music and flashing lights, and this is how I know I will be the one lucky enough to talk to her tonight. I leave my friends who have brought me here, and battle my way across the room to take a seat beside her. Closer, she only gets more beautiful.
“Hello,” I say, loud enough for her to hear over the music, “want to leave?” She nods and lifts her hand for me to take, which I do, carefully, since it seems as if it may shatter. It is small, breakable, each fingernail painted a different colour. She grips my hand tightly, and knots her fingers into the back of my shirt, keeping herself close to me. Her perfume is intoxicating, drips off her body like honey off a spoon. When we finally make our way outside, she inhales, like she hadn’t breathed in far too long; she looks to the sky and smiles softly, her eyes opening and taking in the dark blue canvas, as if it was painted just for her.
“Thank you,” she says, “for rescuing me.” I can’t help but smile – this is the first time I hear her voice and it is, without doubt, as beautiful as her, “I don’t like parties like this at all – the houses are always filled with cigarette smoke and the bathrooms are covered in vomit. I never have an excuse to leave though, until now.” Her porcelain skin glows under the moonlight, and I almost forget how to speak, how to breathe. My body forgets how to be a body.
“What’s your name?” I ask, watching as my breath turns to a white cloud of cold air in front of me.
“Violet,” she replied, “like the flower.” She smiled, reached into the pocket of her jeans and fished out a lighter and a bent cigarette; lighting it before putting it to her lips, then inhaled, “What’s yours?” she asked. I focused on the rings of smoke she blew, ones that puffed into the air and then disappeared. I felt like I could disappear.
“What’s my what?” I asked, turning my attention back to her.
She laughed, a wind chime giggle that tumbled from her lips and fell flat in front of me, “Your name,” She repeated.
“Oh, I’m Alex.” I outstretched a hand, watched as she transferred the cigarette into her mouth and waited for her to shake – her hands were soft, like velvet or your favourite stuffed toy. I let go of her, all too soon, and she blew out another puff of smoke, slowly, until it caught in my lungs and made me choke. I coughed, my eyes watered and my face turned red with lack of air and embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she said, waving a hand through the remaining smoke, “It’s a bad habit, I know. I’m only doing it to kill myself, not everyone around me – it’s just a side effect.”
“You shouldn’t kill yourself,” I told her, “You’re far too pretty to die. Besides, suicide is a selfish thing; you shouldn’t be worrying about killing me while you’re killing yourself.”
She smiled, looked down and exhaled another puff of smoke, “You’re right, you know – I’ve never been able to view it as selfish because I have no one. It seems more of a gift to the world; I’d stop wasting space, wasting air and everyone else would breathe easier. Maybe a homeless person would move into my house.”
“Whether you have no one, or you have everyone; whether you do or don’t care about the environment – suicide is still selfish. You turn to carbon, pollute the air, the ground, people’s lungs. Whether or not I’d met you, if you had stayed home and killed yourself tonight, it would still be affecting me.”
Violet sighed, flicked the cigarette to the ground and put it out with her shoe, “Again, you’re probably right. Suppose I should stop slowly killing myself then, should I?” I nodded, “How would you suggest I do it then?”
I thought, pondering the most desirable, the most romantic methods of suicide – and the most hilarious and obscure, “Pills,” I said, “a lot of the time they make you vomit, so you don’t actually die.”
“Why, if I was trying to kill myself, would I do something that could just make me throw up?” She frowned at me.
“Because you don’t really want to kill yourself – the second you took the pills, you’d panic.”
“Why… Do I feel like you know me better than I know myself?” She asked, taking the lighter from her pocket and flicking it, igniting the flame and then letting it burn out.
“I know how it feels to want to die,” I explained, “but be too scared to kill yourself.”